The various European economies are pretty interlinked so the bailing out tends not to be that altruistic. For instance Ireland is one of the UK's major trading partners. They buy far more from us than China does! The UK helped Ireland financially because it was in the UK's interest to do so. The alternatives were worse. I think the main point about the financial crisis is that it has happened and hopefully lessons will be learned and no-one in the future wil be bailing out anyone else. Speaking hypothetically Scotland of course wouldn't have the clout to bail out a much larger neighbour though I don't see why it wouldn't be willing to help in conjunction with other European countries.